THE GREAT WHITE BUTTERFLY. 149 



anterior wings, which gives such striking relief to 

 the softness of the almost snowy cream-colour, into 

 which it is softened by several shades of ashy gray 

 that might seem the work of a skilful artist, if 

 pencil could be found sufficiently delicate for the 

 work. A similar shade of gray, but paler, occurs 

 at the base of the wings near the body, and then 

 there is a delicate streak of orange down the front 

 edge of the wing, and a careful observer may note 

 that in some specimens, such as in that represented 

 in our Plate, for instance, the middle of the upper 

 wings, which are often perfectly immaculate, are 

 marked with two conspicuous black spots, .shaded off 

 with gray like the patches at the tips. The student 

 need not be ashamed of coming to the decision 

 that those marked in that manner are probably a 

 distinct species, nor of being told that they are not 

 so, and that they are simply the females who have 

 been favoured with this extra decoration — a fact 

 which stands in rather curious contradistinction to 

 the more general prevalence of superior beauty in 

 the markings of the males. The tyro need not be 

 ashamed, as I have said, of imagining the different 

 markings of male and female Butterflies to be the 

 signs of distinct species, for the great Linnaeus, 

 before him, fell into a similar error on more than a 



